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Friday, April 6, 2018

So, Shapeways is a service which allows users to upload models, and then get them printed from a variety of materials. I have used it before, to rather good success. Shapeways also allows you to create a storefront and SELL your models, where they do all the hard work of printing and shipping, and the storefront owner just rolls around in money... well more realistically, a few models get sold, and the money gets plowed back into buying Shapeways models!

After I had made a few models, I started to think that others might want them as well. I could go the traditional route of printing the models, and then casting them, but given my previous casting and international shipping experience, that would not work out very well. So instead, I opened up a store front on Shapeways called Space Façade, because those are the two categories of items I plan to offer.

Right now the shop has a number of Trek style ships that I have made in 1/3788 scale (suitable for use with Micromachines or SFB ships).

Here are some examples:

This is a ship that you may recognize, although I call it a DY105, given the slight augmentation to the engines.

Here we have a sprue of mixed "Confederation" auxiliaries, one each of three types of fighters, a troop transport shuttle, and a general purpose shuttle. These shuttles are roughly 500% of what they should be in scale, but even so are under a cm square.

Finally, this is a modification of the 22nd century IKS D6 cruiser. I have created a command variant by adding a bridge dome, a secondary dome, and some neck reinforcing.

In the future, I plan to offer some 1/61 scale terrain pieces, rather like this one, as well as embellishments suitable for adding to other terrain pieces.

So go take a look, and if you like what you see, buy some. If you do not see something you like, drop me a line, and maybe I can make it for you.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

As always, thanks to my local library, I was able to read both the Art of Star Wars the last Jedi, and the Visual Dictionary for the Last Jedi (and the novelization too)

Both of these were in my opinion a bit paltry, without giving full coverage to some of the areas that I would have liked to see more of. Part of the problem I suppose is that the editors are constrained both by the need to make the book under a certain maximum page count, and also hold back some material for future books... no reason to give away all 100 of a certain space ship design, or all the aliens. This was further compounded by the "twist" in the Force Awakens that Rey is the force sensitive one, and not Finn. So all of the art from that section was relegated to this art book, which is more than a bit unfair.

Anyway here are some highlight images from the Visual Dictionary:

Cool Resistance soldier outfit

Layered helmet

"Heavier" version of the standard rebel pilot uniform

Bridge crew you never saw before they were obliterated

Ships you never saw before they were obliterated

Cool alien

And here are some images from the Art of Star Wars: The Last Jedi:

These Resistance soldiers are pretty awesome, particularly the guy in the lower middle. I could certainly see these influencing some future 15mm scifi soldiers

This version was rejected as being "too heroic", which makes it suitable for use elsewhere!

Sunday, April 1, 2018

You may have noticed that I have been away from this blog for some time... due to a confluence of factors, both motivational and external.

Never fear, I have been trying to keep up with YOUR blogs, and I have been poking away at a few hobby related activities. I even have some posts halfway written. So expect some forthcoming posts about being inspired by Death of a Rubricist, TinkerCAD/Shapeways work, stuff I have read, and even (hopefully) a bit of painting.